So this is what a genuine magician looks like? “A Collection of Funny Images of the Genuine Magician” is just too outrageous

From witnessing the first Legend of Sword and Fairy all the way to now, I count as one of those who watched domestic games stumble and grow up. Words like “jianghu dreams” and “free and easy vengeance” have long been branded into my heart. When I hear the word “magician,” my mind automatically jumps to Chinese-style spells like sword-riding immortals and worlds hidden in one’s sleeve, not just a few joke images thrown together. When I clicked into “Official Magician Fun Picture Appreciation,” I thought I might see some brainy “Chinese-style mage builds,” but after a few pages, only one word remained in my mind—jarring.

Back to this piece “Official Magician Fun Picture Appreciation”: in essence, it’s a fun image collection page themed around “this is what a real/official magician looks like.” The main body is almost entirely images, with only a few words of text. The page lets you flip through with the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard, and at the bottom there’s a row of “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next Page.” In form, it’s quite similar to the old Tieba image threads, except flipping page after page left me feeling a bit lost. Wuxia is about atmosphere, about the stories behind each move and stance. A page supported purely by images like this instead feels more like a jumble of disjointed gags, missing a bit of soul.

Among them, one image of a two‑dimensional anime girl blocked by a foreground silhouette stands out as particularly jarring in the set. You can tell they’re going for a kind of contrast, like “I’m standing firm on the front lines so you can zone out safely behind me.” Combined with the phrase “holding the fort alone” in the text, it does carry a hint of roleplay, but this kind of execution leans far more toward meme culture than any meaningful form of character portrayal. In a wuxia world, “holding the fort alone” is Linghu Chong guarding Mount Heng, it’s Jing Tian shouldering Shushan—not a cutesy screenshot where the face is blocked, being forcefully matched to the term.

Even more off-topic, the image set also includes some real-life photos of people in uniforms walking down a corridor, whose vibe completely fails to line up with the supposed “magician” theme. Call it clowning around, call it clout-chasing, this mishmash reminds me of how some older domestic games used to forcibly mash together traditional wuxia aesthetics and modern internet jokes—using the cheapest gags while trying to cash in on the most expensive nostalgia. Nostalgia can be teased and joked about, but at the very least, you have to respect players’ basic imagination around a term or a type of character, instead of tossing in a few random pictures just to ride the hype.

Setting feelings aside, let’s look at it calmly: “Official Magician Fun Picture Appreciation” isn’t a game work at all, nor does it count as any genuine expansion of a worldbuilding. It’s more like a stream of fun images created purely to attract clicks. The line “this is what a real/official magician looks like” in it feels more like clickbait emphasis than any response to a serious setting. As a veteran player who has watched domestic games evolve from Blade & Sword to Swords of Legends, I’ve seen truly solid character portrayals, and I’ve also seen “infuriating” operations where great hands were played into the ground. Using “official” as a mere gag—put mildly, it’s harmless; put bluntly, it’s genuinely disheartening.

But if we stay calm, content like “Official Magician Fun Picture Appreciation” actually reflects a trend: in today’s age of information overload, more and more platforms are willing to use the lightest images and the most casual text to consume players’ expectations around certain keywords. Today it’s “official magician,” tomorrow it might be “official hero,” “official sword immortal.” When these words—which ought to carry romance—are repeatedly reduced to punchlines, the bit of pure memory wuxia and xianxia left us with will gradually be diluted. For players who truly love domestic games and are willing to patiently wait for good works, I’d rather save my attention for games that honestly put in the work on their content, not this kind of fast-food gag thread cobbled together from images. The purchase advice is simple: if one day you see a game pushing similar gimmicks, take a closer look at its actual content. Don’t let the feelings you painstakingly built up be casually harvested by a thin layer of marketing.